Former CBC Chair: GOP ‘Turning the Clock Back to the Days of Jim Crow’ With Voter ID Laws

914

Shares

Email this story to a friend

Rep. Barbara Lee accused Republicans Wednesday of "turning the clock back to the days of Jim Crow" with voter identification laws. (AP File Photo)

A Democratic congresswoman and former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus charged Republicans with “turning the clock back to the days of Jim Crow” in a fiery speech Wednesday decrying voter identification laws.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said in a speech on the House floor that the GOP is trying to deny blacks the right to vote, saying “it’s no coincidence that a disproportionate number of these affected voters come from communities of color as well as the poor, the elderly and students,” The Hill reported.

“Having been born and raised in Texas, this certainly looks like a poll tax to me, which those of us remember as a way to prevent African Americans from voting. These voter ID laws have a partisan agenda: seeking to disenfranchise and deny specific populations of voters before they have the opportunity to elect their representatives in government,” Lee said.

Lee, a current member of the Congressional Black Caucus who served as its chair from 2009 to 2011, claimed voter ID laws would prevent 1 in 4 blacks from voting, and 1 in 5 Hispanics and Asian Americans. She said the laws are a return to voter suppression seen in the 2000 presidential election, according to The Hill.

“I came to this floor years ago, after the stolen presidential elections in Florida and Ohio, to protest the results of those two elections that were filled with voter suppression,” she said. “It worked for Republicans before, and so legislators in 42 states in this map of shame have doubled down on these strategies to make it harder for certain communities to vote.”